Tag: Autism
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March Gratitude & Some Reading
To Hannah My sweet daughter, my love has been, is, and always will be yours without any need to do anything, much less something that would necessitate a gratitude note. But I know I owe you a note all the same. For holding my hand in the middle of the night on the way to…
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Maybe Someday
A few weeks ago, I resumed active participation once a day in community safety walks for Tony with both Casandra and Emily. We had told Tony that I couldn’t run yet, and he was trying his absolute best to control his urges to sprint ahead. During our first walk back with Emily, she asked me…
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Checking Out For Two Weeks
An alternate title to this might be “welcome to the sometimes very scary world of special needs dentistry.” When you have a kiddo who needs sedation or anesthesia, even outside of a pandemic, you can wait months to get a cavity repaired. Even when a bigger chunk of the tooth is gone (as we encountered…
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Headed Into New Years With A Double Bang
Some of you might, but if the statistics are accurate, more than 70% of you didn’t. And, I didn’t either. So let’s take a closer look again: And here’s what I found out after watching sweet, innocent Bandit rub his nose into the stamens of the lilies in the bouquet Andy brought me and deciding…
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Sometimes Acceptance As A Gift
When I was a little girl, I used to eagerly look forward to Christmas. Holidays where gifts were given were one of the few times I got toys or anything new that felt special or exciting. And even then, because my parents were pretty darn poor, my grandparents and great aunts and uncles often still…
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King of the Changes
Miss Dee (Tony’s first occupational therapist) and I had been talking several years ago during one of his initial appointments, both about things that I had observed and things that she observed with our son. She looked at me and said something to the effect of, “So he really struggles with transitions.” I agreed but…
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Public Comments and Open Letter on Proposed Changes to the AAC Policy for Division of Developmental Disabilities Recipients
Earlier this week I submitted comments to the Division of Developmental Disabilities as part of a legally mandated public comment period for proposed changes to the policy that governs prior authorization for assistive speech device technology, or AAC. For a while now my posting schedule has been every Friday, however I felt like for those…
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Will We Look Away?
A couple of years ago, I was driving Tony to one of his many therapy appointments. As I pulled to a corner of an exit ramp, I lowered my window and held out some cash to a gentleman standing at the corner with a sign. He quickly met my eyes and then looked down, back…
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A Little Bit About Article 9…
Much of my time feels like it’s not really my own right now- paid or unpaid- so I’m going to keep my words and explanations here as stripped down as possible.. A question could be posed after reading last week’s post: why would being a temporary direct care worker covering our son’s habilitation hours increase…
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Coloring Marigolds and Other Early November Moments
November started with me plucking crayons like petals from a Ziploc bag, handing only one at a time to Tony, who colored an image of marigolds in short bursts while I talked to him about Dia de los Muertos. Coloring marigolds seemed more suited to our son’s current fine motor abilities than sugar skulls, which…